Jerusalem, ‘Ein el-Lauza

Boaz Zissu

11/06/2006

During March 2002 a burial cave was documented in ‘Ein el-Lauza, in Jerusalem (map ref. NIG 22555/63050; OIG 17555/13050), in the wake of its exposure while widening a road. The documentation (without excavating), on behalf of the Antiquities Authority, was conducted by B. Zissu, assisted by H. Abu Ta‘a and G. Solimany.

The cave was hewn at the bottom of the western slope of Nahal Qidron. Its eastern part was damaged when the road was widened; therefore, its entrance is unknown and it is unclear whether it had a vestibule or a courtyard. The cave had a rectangular burial chamber (c. 3.5 × 5.5 m, height 2.6 m; Fig. 1) in which three kokhim with trapezoidal openings were hewn, c. 1.1 m above floor level. Two regular kokhim (length 1.8 m, width 0.75 m, height 0.95 m) were cut in the southern wall and a single kokh, which is long and especially wide (length 2.75 m, inner width 1.3 m), was cut in the western wall. The cave’s ceiling was flat. Since the cave was hewn in fractured bedrock the walls were coated with gray plaster that included pieces of small gravel in many places. The cave contained several poorly preserved human bones and a few fragments of pottery vessels, including a cooking bowl fragment with a triangular rim and other cooking bowl sherds, a nozzle fragment of a knife-pared lamp and a juglet fragment with a cupmark-shaped rim. The cave was dated from the first century BCE to the first century CE, based on the finds. It belonged to the cemetery of Jerusalem from the time of the SecondTemple period.